


The Symphonia

by ptriverson



Category: Idris Elba - fandom, The Wire
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 02:50:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15427398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ptriverson/pseuds/ptriverson
Summary: Béatrice, an economics professor, takes Stringer Bell to his first orchestral concert. And tries (and notably fails) not to get utterly filthy with him.





	The Symphonia

Like I told the other officer: I had been a teacher at Baltimore Community college for just under a year; my exchange was coming to an end. Normally I taught economics in Amiens, my hometown, and when they proposed an échange culturelle I jumped at the chance to see somewhere new- America!

I stayed in the visiting professor’s home- it was a comfortable, shabby brownstone building near Pearlstone Park and I liked it very much- and found his friends took me on as their own, so I was rarely lonely during my stay there, although alas he was much older than I and although there were some fumbled passes from his friends (married and unmarried both), nobody truly interested me. I had left Laurent in Amiens, but a year is a long time to be away and we did not leave claims on one another like that.

I took several classes, some in the day and some in the evening; which I preferred. In the day were students, lazy, yawning, trying to make fun of my accent and just get through the class. In the evening were people who already worked all day; who were more my age; who knew what it was to get up in the morning and make a living, and wanted to improve themselves. I respected that. It was what I expected America to be like.

There was a mix of people in the class, young and old, mostly black- it was community college, and I liked that about America. In France, you know, where we live it is very much everybody is the same. Baltimore is dangerous they say, but I did not find it so and the professor let me us his orchestral season pass, which I enjoyed very much.

As I told the policeman- several times, he was more aggressive I think than he needed to be- I did not notice Mr Bell at first. He was just a tall presence, sitting in the class. It wasn’t until he asked a question- up until then he had been extremely quiet- on economic elasticity that I noticed him; he was more smartly dressed than most of my students, and his voice was low too. He actually asked something that showed he’d done the reading and was engaging with the text which I will have to tell you is particularly unusual. His first two papers were As, then on his third- on The Wealth of Nations’, I noticed that as soon as we got away from logical principles and into the real world- (in this case the social-historical context of Smith himself), he was badly out of his depth. I marked him a ‘C’ and thought no more about it until one Thursday he stayed behind.

He had seemed calm and collected in class but now he was in front of him he seemed oddly shy for such a large man, and he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. He was, I noticed, wearing french cologne, which surprised me, then I was annoyed at myself for being surprised.

“Mr Bell?”

He held out his essay, looking embarrassed, and his voice was low and he mumbled.

“I…sorry. This ‘C’”

I smiled.

“Are you used to being the top student?”

“I just… I’d like to know what wasn't right.”

“Well, I asked for Smith’s social and historic context… I didn’t need much, but just an idea…”

He looked at me blankly.

“You didn’t add anything.”

There was a long pause. I got the odd impression this was a man not afraid of silence, a fairly rare commodity these days.

“I didn’t understand the question” he said, his voice so low I nearly couldn’t make it out.

“Well, I mean, the historical context of the man” I said. “He was born in Scotland, in a rural area, and witnessed great inequality first hand, then moved to one of the greatest industrial heartlands of the British Empire, Glasgow.”

His face didn’t look any less confused.

“THe British Empire?” I said again, more slowly. He took off his glasses slowly and sighed. Then he smiled ruefully.

“Nope” he said.

I looked at him.

“May I ask… did you finish high school?” I said. It wasn’t a requirement of the course; anyone who wanted to could pretty much show up.

He shook his head.

“Didn’t go to high school” he said, then glanced at me when he saw my eyebrows shoot up. Then he looked back at the floor and there was an awkward pause.

“I’ll find you something” I said. “I think I have a book that might help.”

“Thank you ma’am” he said, and he was gone.

*

I dug up one of my oldest, favourite books, “A Little History of the World” by Ernest Gombrich. It’s supposedly for children, but it reads well for adults and doesn’t look like a children’s book. I handed it over the following Thursday. His face was pleased, and he did the oddest thing; took the book in his large hands, and palmed it away somewhere as if he was used to hiding things. He caught me looking and, for the first time, a ghost of a smile crossed his face. He thanked me again and left, and that was the end of the spring semester and I realised I probably wouldn’t see the book again, but still- an investment, of sorts, I supposed.

*

I was strolling down the waterfront after the Easter sunshine had given us a respite in a harsh winter when I saw a tall figure engaged in what looked like an incredibly intense conversation with a port worker. He saw me walking towards him and straightened up; it was Mr Bell. I wasn’t sure he’d recognise me out of the classroom, but he did. He murmured something to the person he was talking to, who bowed his head respectfully, then moved slowly towards me; I noticed something I hadn’t seen before, in the classroom he was simply too big for: he had extraordinary grace for such a large man. He was unhurried, and without swagger.

“Miss Cathair”

“You can call me Beatrice” I said, and suddenly as I did so I realised I had put myself at a disadvantage and I wanted to blush. He was my pupil, nothing more. I had been distracted and seen him walk towards me, that was all.

He blinked, but didn’t tell me his own first name in return, which made me feel even more self conscious, as I couldn’t remember it. Neither did he smile. Although he did say,

‘I enjoyed the book. Very much”

“I’m glad” I said, trying not to stutter. It was simply odd to meet him out of context of the classroom, that was all. The wind blew in off the port and somewhere a massive ship’s horn made talking impossible.

“You can give it back to me next term” I said, when it had passed. Then the horn came again, and I smiled, expecting us to share the oddness of the moment, but once again he didn’t; he seemed perfectly happy to calmly wait it out. I wasn’t sure if he was being extremely dignified or simply peculiar. The wind was blowing my hair into my face when he said in that deep growl, “I can’t come back next term”

He glanced quickly at the port man, who had vanished behind a chain fence.

I frowned.

“I am sorry to hear that. Your work is excellent. You could certainly get your diploma…”

He shook his head briefly.

“Well” I said. It was a delicate moment. I would have liked my book back. But I didn’t know how to ask. And I was feeling like a schoolgirl, just standing in his unsmiling presence.

“I could bring it to you” he said finally. “The book?”

The wind whipped through me again and I thougth briefly of Laurent, very far away, and very distant when I spoke to him on the telephone, and the long winter, and how my sojourn in America was coming to an end and truly, did I have many adventures to show for it? I was young after all, was I not?

“I have tickets…” I began. The symphony was playing that evening and I had been planning to attend.

He stared at me. “Huh?”

“I have tickets. Tonight. For the orchestra. You could…”

I felt increasingly foolish.

“You could come.”

“The what?”

“The orchestra? THe musicians? At the opera house?”

It was as if I were speaking Bulgarian. Finally I took the tickets out of my handbag and showed them to him. He looked at them for a long time, and his impassive face moved, slightly, as if he was having an internal dialogue with himself.

“Sure” he said, at last, and my heart leapt, ridiculously, and above the diesel and the fumes and the salt wind of the port, I caught again a slight air of the cologne he was wearing, and I smiled awkwardly, my heart beating furiously, and of course he did not smile back, but I felt his eyes on me as I turned and walked away.

   
2

I had in fact dated a few men in Baltimore but have always found you American men difficult; touchy, a little over interested in my being french; constantly, and bizarrely, desperate to tell me how much money you make or what type of car you drive as if that meant something to me, as if I would owe you. Donc. I hadn’t liked any of them enough to sleep with them. It had, therefore, been something of a long time.

I wasn’t thinking this as I got dressed- I was trying not to, desperately but I couldn’t help the butterflies of anticipation shooting through me, the knot in my stomach as I showered and got dressed.

I told myself off quite severely. This was a man I didn’t know. Who was also one of my students.

Well, ex-student, my brain responded. So, technically…

I put down my best set of underwear. And put on the second best set; Aquitaine lace, all of it, in a dove grey that offset my pale skin. I toyed with the red dress. No. I shouldn’t even have bought it; it said nothing else but offered me up on a plate. I had also a crushed rose velvet which looked good with the grey lingerie, and the diamonds at my ears I’d inherited from my grandmere. I pulled my dark hair into a chignon and painted my lips a pale red. I didn’t apply blush, nor did I let myself think why not.

The progamme was early music, not the romantics: A little Corelli, Purcell; some Bach. Music designed to glorify God, not the natural world. It should keep, I hoped, my thoughts in order.

I remembered again the way he had moved across the harbour shoreline; the very breadth of him. I glanced at my watch. Nearly seven. I would have to hurry, even though the opera house was nearby. But my shoes, they were not sensible. I dabbed eau premiere on my wrists and neck, adding too much as I realised my hands were shaking, told myself to stop being so stupid; left the apartment, fumbling the keys into my evening bag.

*

The Lyric was lit up in the early spring air; well dressed couples mostly older than I were thronging towards the building. I realised with a start- I had not thought of it- just how many of the people there were white. I hoped he would not be insulted, I had not thought of it.

Or perhaps of course he would not come. It had been a spur of the moment thing, quickly done. Perhaps he had thought how silly I was. Perhaps he had other plans. Perhaps, it occurred to me, he had a wife at home, and children. But he did not seem like that sort of a man. But of course, he would not come, I had been ridiculous to ask, it was the spur of the moment, it was nothing, truly, I didn’t even remember his first name…

He was there. A head taller- at least- than the other patrons passing through the doors. He stood as if he was in his own space; a solid, immoveable object like a tree or a rock. People automatically gave him a wide berth.

He was wearing a suit, a shirt; both impeccably cut and, given his proportions, unlikely to be off the shelf. What an unusual American man this was.

They rang the bell and I was sorry for it as I wanted to look at him for as long as I could. He blinked, as if he didn’t understand what the bell was for, and then I walked towards him and stood in front of him, barely trusting myself to speak, and he focused on me, and said nothing, but looked at me profoundly and utterly directly, straight into my eyes, and the rest of the world swum in and out of focus a little and I realised I had gotten in very deep, very fast, and I had nobody to blame but myself.

*

He followed me into the auditorium, and I kept sneaking incrediulous glances at him. And also I knew something I had not been honest with myself about before: I wanted to have sex with him, so badly, so aggressively. I felt furious about it; as if, now, I could not rest or eat or sleep or concentrate until I had fucked him.

He wasn’t looking at me now, he was looking up and around at the gilt cornices and red velvet boxes of the opera auditorium.

“You have been here before?” I asked, but he shook his head and the orchestra tuning up appeared to startle him.

“Beatrice!” came a voice. It was Madame Clark, the wife of the Dean of the university of Maryland, who was also getting up, his sandy head confused as to who it was now- everyone knew each other at these things. I walked down the aisle, a little unsteadily, and kissed her on both cheeks. They came out. Mr Bell was right behind me.

“Goodness!” said Mrs Clark, staring up at him. It was an absurd reaction and made me want to laugh, but of course the same one I had felt, so whether one was 28 as I was, or 60, as she must have been, it was simply the same thing. Mr Bell said nothing, just blinked a slow blink.

“Uhm, hey, nice to meet you” said Dr Clark, putting out his hand to Mr Bell, which disappeared into his; the disparity between them was quite ridiculous. “I don’t believe we’ve met”

Now I really was going to laugh; I was going to start and not be able to stop and get completely out of control.

“Str..”

He corrected himself.

“Russell Bell.”

“Right” said Dr Clark, looking confused. “Are you… a Bach enthusiast?”

 

Thankfully the lights went down just then and I smiled graciously and we took our seats. Mrs Clark didn’t take her eyes off him. She was not the only one.

*

   
3.

The Purcell was light and joyous and melodic and I was grateful that we weren’t at one of the modern programmes. Kani was conducting, and she made a fine sight in her well-tailored coat and vigorous performance. I snuck a glance at him. His stillness really was extraordinary. He didn’t twitch, fidget, look at the programme, move a muscle even. His entire concentration was fixed on the musicians. I wondered, shifting slightly, exactly what all that concentration would be like where it was fixed entirely on, say for example, me. I was intensely aware of his muscular thighs next to me. He must have been two metres tall. I felt so tiny next to him. My eyes strayed to his lap again, and I flushed, and thank God he did not turn his head.

The pianist came on, a tall etoliated man with a worried expression and ridiculous fingers like the leg of a spider, and sat down at the Bosendorfer.

I had never thought of Bach as a sexual composer before; you know, he wrote for the glory of God, always, he said. Mathematical. Pure.

But as the sxith prelude began, for the first time I suddenly started to see it in a new light. For in Bach both hands are equal; neither partner dominates. There is always a question and a resolution; one side asks and the other answers; one side pushes and the other is coy, then returns, to push again, ever more strongly, driving harder and harder, and always the rhythm pulses us on, relentlessly, towards where we cannot return.

Bach had twenty children, did you know? Twenty indeed. Sex was all he knew.

*

The great rippling fall of the descending fugue crashed, satisfyingly to a halt, and I looked at him fully on. Was he enjoying himself? Would he tell me if he was? I would risk a joke but I did not see him as a man who would enjoy jokes. Which in a husband would be troubling. But for someone whom I craved as a thirsty man craves water, I did not care.

“You like?” I whispered. And he looked at me, and I couldn’t read his face. It is possible, though, that those huge eyes of his were wet. But perhaps not.

He nodded, briefly, and swallowed suddenly, and then the pianist began the Goldberg Variations, and I watched him, and he looked lost in it and I could stare at him as long as I wanted; could drink him in, so I could, and I was wet and I was shameless and squirming and I realised as I looked at the programme that I wasn’t entirely sure I could sit through it.

At the interval everyone was drinking champagne and he immediately bought a bottle which I wondered how on earth we would manage, then he asked me how long the interval was and I realised he simply didn’t know. But he didn’t care in the slightest; left the almost-full bottle on the bar, where the young staff would enjoy it later, I knew. I had watched him, too, overtip the server to an exceptional degree. I liked this about him. If you are unsure about what to do in a given situation, generosity is a better road to take.

“So, what do you do?” I said.

“Distribution” he said, shortly. He had come back to himself after the music, and his eyes were beginning to make their way up and down my velvet dress, which was good as I was beginning to despair of its usual rock-solid abilities and wish I’d worn the red one instead.

“What of?” I said. I know people think their jobs are boring, but never to me. Macroeconomics is a huge colony of worker bees; I am always excited to think where people take their places in the hive.

He blinked.

“Nothing interesting” he siad. “Goods and services. Tell me about the music.”

“You like it?”

He looked at me for a long moment.

“I like something.”

I wondered if there was ever a woman who had said no to him. Who hadn’t been easy meat as soon as they’d seen him walk across a room. I wondered when he’d known; this extraordinary power that he had.

I thought for an instant I should be less forward. That I should make myself unavailable, mysterious. I did not know then that simply by my existing I was very very mysterious to him; a gift he was desperate to unwrap.

Normallement, you know, a seduction, it takes time, it needs so be savoured, adored, the moments before the first night, the first hand, the first kiss.

I did not need a seduction. I needed to be fucked so hard it would turn the world blind in my eyes.

“We could…” I whispered.

The bell sounded. He looked, regretfully, through the doors of the orchestra pit. Then he looked back to me, and the pull was greater. I stood up straighter in my shoes, my back arching, just a little, and he noticed, and his lips twitched, and I felt ridiculous, as if he was doing me a favour, but also I didn’t care, because I needed it, and that was all.

*

He hailed a cab to go to his place which was good; I felt, for some reason, rather squeamish about the professors adorably disshevelled apartment, and what I was in the mood to do. And I was curious; where did he live? How? I wondered briefly how it would be if he lived in a mess, then looked at him again and his perfectly tailored suit and believed this to be unlikely.

We didn’t speak; my breathing was fast and I didn’t trust my voice. He was looking out at the lights as if calculating something; as if taking me home wasn’t something he’d been planning on doing. Then he turned to look at me, a squirming mess on the back seat, staring at him with huge longing eyes, and he smiled, and softened, and put out his hand- oh my lord, it was vast- and gently caressed my jaw.

Then, as we sped through parts of Baltimore I did not know, he pulled me towards him till I was sitting on his lap, my back to him.

He gently; very gently, kissed my bared shoulder through the dress and I shut my eyes. He leant his huge head against my trembling spine.

“Tell me” he whispered, very quietly. “Tell me what you want. Tell me exactly what you want.”

I took a breath.

“Rough” I whispered. “Severe. Please.”

I felt him breathe out on my shoulders.

“Are you sure?” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I do” I said, savagely, not even clear as to how I was saying these words.

The cab drew up in front of a glassy new building over looking the water. The apartment was at the top of the building, with heavy security on the door, but the white corridor opened out onto a beautiful corner space, fully glassed, with a view of the sea. Huge grey sofas spanned the room, and a build in bookshelf lined the far end. Outside was a balcony with a table and chairs set up. It was beautiful; immaculate; full of taste.

“Your book” he said, removing it from where it had been placed next to an ancient edition of The Wealth of Nations. I smiled at him, and complimented him on his apartment. He looked around as if surprised.

“I don’t… I don’t bring people here” he said, as if he’d only just realised this.

“Mm” I said. “Would you like me to leave?”

I smiled and sat down pertly on the grey couch and leaned forward. He stared at me for a long moment, then, his voice gruff,

“No”.

And then he grabbed me. Just picked me up, like I weighed nothing, which I suppose to him I didn’t, and kissed me, deeply, and the sensation of being held in his arms, kept fast, was intoxicating as I kissed him back, at last, and almost before that first kiss had ended, I had my legs tight around his waist. They didn’t meet at the back; he was simply so huge. He had one hand cradling the back of my head and my neck, the other under my ass and his fingers were thick as I wriggled myself back on them.

With that he simply moved forward until he had crashed me against the wall and pressed hard against me and for the first time I took in the full force and power of this man; his strength, his dominance, the thick press of his chest against mine- as long as he was holding me up in the air. He could break me like a doll.

My body was going wild. I pushed against him, feeling the erection I was hoping for; gasping when I felt the outline of it.

“Go slow” he said, his voice panting in my ears. “Go slow, don’t rush. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“I don’t think I can wait”

“Sure you can”

“I want it”

“I want you too. But I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Just fuck me”

He laughed.

“Come here. I promise. Let me know best. Sssh.”

And he sat down on the sofa, and started to kiss me all over and stroke me; his mouth on my long nipples felt divine, my impatience growing ever sharper, my hips jerking towards him of their own accord. “Jesus” I said. “Please. Hurry up. PLEASE”

“But I wanna play some more with these”

“You can afterwards!”

He looked at me mischeviously.

“I’m not going in rough”

“I’m soaking wet.”

“Yeahhh” he said, as if he knew that wasn’t going to cut it. Then he slowly unbuttoned his trousers, and pulled them down. His utterly massive cock was bursting out of his boxers.

I came to a halt, temporarily; in shock.

“Fucking hell” I said.

“Yeahhh” he said again.

“But” I said.

“Yeah” he said. He saw my face.

“Hush” he said. “We’ll just have to go careful. Sssh. Come here.”

And he laid me down on the sofa, peeled off what was left of my dress, unhooked my bra then started to lick me through the lace of my panties, until I was drenched and squirming and moaning aloud and begging, and he peeled them off, then moved up and mounted me, his great head above me, and very, very carefully, grunting a little as he did so, he managed to wedge just the vast head of his penis inside me and I cried out, and felt tears come to my eyes, and started to sweat heavily all the way down my back

“It’s okay. It’s okay little one” he whispered in my ear as he tried to give me time to adjust to him.

“I can’t!” I groaned in deep disappointment. “I can’t! It won’t fit!”

“Ssh”

And he very gently rocked me back and forth, a little further each time, even though I was terrified; I actually thought he was going to tear me apart.

“It just takes time” he said, trying to push forward a little. “There we go. There we go”

We were both sweating profusely although it was not warm in the apartment; our heads resting together as he would kiss me, and try and move me down a little, forcing himself further in and I would yelp with the pain, and cry out, but still, the ache in me would not stop building; the pain sharpening the desire every time as I felt more of his cock filling me beyond bursting; and he murmured, and kissed, and cajoled, and rammed it in, infinitely slowly, a few more centimetres, ever onwards, a few more centimetres, until at last, to my absolute surprise, he was finally in me, fully and we were joined, and I could feel his groin against me and the sensation of being utterly stuffed full, and crushed beneath him, suddenly overtook all my rational instincts, and, even though I could barely move with his weight on me, I arched my back and started to thrust, hard, one, two three, against his hard torso, until I came, furiously and ferociously; harder than I ever had done in my life, even though it did hurt and he thrust forward into me faster then, pounding on me and that made me scream and then come again, absurdly, crying throughout, absolutely open with the stretch of it, and he laughed and said, ‘thank God you didn’t want it rough’ as I lay panting beneath him and I looked up at him fiercely said, ‘do it”, and he shoved it in then with such force I screamed again as he opened me up completely and his ass tightened under my hands as he thrust with all his might, grunting harder and harder, telling him how he was fucking me and didn’t I love it, with my tight little cunt, and I thought I was going to pass out as he flooded me and the fluid gave me some relief, even as I was still crying at the force of it, and then he was done and collapsed on top of me and I clung to him, shocked, breathless; not I do not think the same person I had been.

So. May I go now please?>>

-was that the last time you saw him?

< _> _

 

 

But the dark haired policeman would not answer me.


End file.
